


Fatalize

by Zelos



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, 5+1 Things, Banshee Lydia Martin, Character Study, F/M, Future Fic, Gen, Harbingers of Death, Hellhound Jordan Parrish, Hellhounds, Loss of Identity, Pack Dynamics, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 10:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15993404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/pseuds/Zelos
Summary: Being a harbinger of death changed you.Five times Lydia noticed Jordan had changed, and one time she accepted he was gone.





	Fatalize

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Theostry](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Theostry/gifts), [Whispering_Sumire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Whispering_Sumire/gifts).



> Takes place after season five. Only minor details from season six (e.g. Lydia is an incoming junior into MIT) were used.

**0.**

 

“Medium Americano, black.”

Jordan eyed the drink, then looked back up at her, eyebrows raised. “That’s at _least_ a large, if not extra large.”

Lydia shrugged airily. “You need all the caffeine you can get.” If he rationed it it might even last him three hours.

Jordan grinned, fingers curling gratefully around the steaming cup. “Thanks.”

She’d gotten a cup for herself too. There was no point in trying to sleep so close to her flight (even though she’d booked a red-eye on purpose). She fidgeted with the paper sleeve as she sipped, glancing over ever so often; he tapped away at his computer, ever so often glancing back.

Jordan would not see her off at the airport; it wasn’t his place. So she made the move, like she always did. His graveyard shifts sucked, but it was easier to hover around his desk at dark o’clock than in plain view of everyone else.

Lydia finally said it, because he never would: “You gonna be okay without me?”

His eyes crinkled, warm with amusement. “I think I’ll be okay.” It was just the right amount of lighthearted wryness, but his smile was soft. “Don’t worry about me. You should be thinking of yourself—and MIT. People to meet, classes to ace, medals to win. That sort of thing.”

Beacon Hills wouldn’t be defenseless; she’d explained all that to Stiles ad infinitum when she drove him to Washington, and if she was honest she’d been at least partly convincing herself too. Mason, Corey, and Liam were still around. Deaton, Stilinski, Melissa, and Chris were still around. It wasn’t _abandonment_.

It still felt like betrayal, somehow. She’d seen it in everyone’s eyes as they parted: Malia, Scott, Stiles.

“No dying without me,” she said instead.

Jordan snorted. “I find bodies, not become one.”

Her, too. And yet…and yet.

“Baited by chimeras? Stabbed with rebar? Left for dead?”

“I’d do it again. And you’d save me, anyway.” And if both their expressions flickered slightly, well, they were polite enough to not mention it. “And you don’t get yourself kidnapped, okay?”

Lydia scrunched her nose. “No promises.”

Jordan laughed softly. His fingers tapped an idle rhythm against his cup, inches from hers. They did not touch.

He finally broke the easy silence. “You should go. You’ve a flight to catch.” Because of course he was keeping track of the time.

He walked her to her car. She hugged him goodbye.

It felt far, far more permanent than she would like.

 

**1.**

 

Lydia finally asked Jordan out the summer after her junior year—insofar as showing up at his apartment and kissing him hello counted as asking. Jordan broke up with her six months later over Christmas break. It was one more stress she didn’t need on top of planning for grad schools and graduation.

“Do _not_ tell me this is for me,” she snapped. “Do not tell me that you don’t deserve me, or don’t want to drag me down, or some bullshit like that, because that is fucking up to _me_ , thanks.”

He waited until she fell silent, and waited a little longer after that—just long enough for the distance between them to stretch into discomfort when it never had before. “Are you coming back here?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Why does—”

“Answer the question.”

She hedged; it felt like a trap. “Yeah, for visits, holidays, things like that. Long term…I don’t know, I haven’t thought that far yet.” That was a lie; maybe she didn’t have a ten year plan cemented yet, but she has a five year plan and none of it included Beacon Hills. Her plan included MIT and Stanford and Princeton, a double major in engineering and mathematics with a minor in evolutionary biology (because the pack’s sole reliance on waxing mythological was downright appalling). Beacon Hills was too small to have anything useful, and there was an entire horizon of supernatural and mathematical research waiting for her.

“You have goals that can’t be reached here—your Field’s Medal, your graduate degrees. You’ve got your entire life ahead of you. You need to go. Me, I’m staying here.”

“There are other Nemetons to protect!”

“Maybe. But someone needs to protect this one, and I want to be one of them. I was drawn to this Nemeton, not any of the other ones.” He shrugged, not quite casual. “I’m on borrowed time anyway, career choices aside. But you’re not.”

“So it _is_ for me,” Lydia hissed back, because she couldn’t admit he was right—because she has goals and a life and she adamantly _refused_ to make the banshee her only life.

He smiled, small and twisted and sad. “It’s for me, Lydia. Long distance is hard.”

He was lying. He was right. There was nothing else for her to argue with, and he probably planned it that way too.

They didn’t talk much after that. Lydia told herself it was normal breakup behaviour.

She graduated. Derek flew every member of the pack out for the ceremony. Her parents managed to be politely cordial to each other for the few hours they were in the same room together. There was a dinner and after-party, and an after-after-party, and an after-after-after—and eventually they landed at a karaoke bar at three in the morning, somehow still standing upright. The staff suffered through their singing when Derek paid them approximately two weeks’ revenue in cash. Stiles challenged the pack to a sing-off, which Derek surprisingly won. Stiles was actually an impressive rapper when he was sober enough to pronounce the words. Jackson was not in attendance, but he called to congratulate Lydia from London and was somehow coaxed into singing Vitamin C’s _Graduation_ on speakerphone.

It was good. It was _normal_ , or as normal as being pack with werewolves was ever going to get. Lydia still has a life. She has goals. She has a _plan_. If Jordan had removed himself from said plan, well, fine.

She ran into said deputy three weeks later, writing traffic tickets. She felt him like she always did, a physical ache in her chest; he looked up before she even turned the corner. They blinked at each other, three feet and a canyon apart.

“Lydia. I didn’t know you were back in town.”

As if he needed to be told. “Summer break before grad school. I’m spending some time with my mom.”

“You’ve graduated then?”

“Summa cum laude.”

He smiled. There was only a shade of sadness. “Congrats. Where to now?”

“Princeton.” She stepped closer, but still left a good six inches between them. His presence weighed on her, hot under her skin. “Anything new with you?”

“Nothing you haven’t already heard about. Liam and the rest have been keeping you posted, right?” He shrugged, the movement slightly stiff. “Rest is just business as usual. Serving subpoenas, parking tickets…got shot two weeks ago by an armed robber.”

“You got _shot?_ ”

“Winged me. I’m fine. Hellhound healing comes in handy.” He caught the look on her face and shrugged again, a little more expansively this time. “It’s all right, really. Duty calls.”

It said something about their lives when being shot at was no longer a novelty for any of them. At least firearms was actually in Jordan’s job description. And yet…

Nope. Wasn’t her place to ask. He’d made that very clear.

Jordan was probably thinking along the same lines; he turned back to his ticketing with a slightly discomfited air. Lydia followed his gaze as he noted the license plate, the make of the car, and—

“Wait, did he already get a ticket?” Lydia stepped around him and plucked a piece of paper out from underneath the windshield wiper.

“Not from me.”

Lydia skimmed the note and handed it to Jordan. He glanced at it, crumpled it, and tossed it to the ground.

“Jordan!”

He sighed like he was talking to a particularly stubborn child. “What? He’s parked illegally.”

“ _He lost his keys._ Are you that behind on your quota?”

Jordan shrugged. “If it’s not me, it’ll be someone else.”

“You can at least buy him a few hours,” Lydia said incredulously. “Your station has like five people, no one else would come by before your next round.”

Jordan cocked an eyebrow. “So you want me to risk getting chewed out or written up for some guy’s pity party?”

Lydia doubted Sheriff Stilinski would throw stones given how many tickets he had weaselled Stiles out of. But even if Stilinski would, that wasn’t the _point_.

Jordan was the guy who drove down to Mexico with a single pistol on the off chance he could help save someone. He, quite literally, set himself on fire and surrendered to an alien inside to help Lydia, with no guarantee of what would come after. It wasn’t that Lydia wanted him to risk his job—protecting others was important to him, more than anything else. But Jordan has always been a good deputy because he _cared_.

She hadn’t been gone that long. Did people really change so fast?

Jordan’s eyebrow hiked a little higher, his head tilting in a silent _well?_ After a beat of silence, he resumed his ticketing with an air of—not triumph, exactly, but…bored disinterest.

“I’m gonna go now,” because maybe she couldn’t protest him doing his job, but she didn’t have to stand here and watch him follow the letter of the law and not the spirit.

“’Kay.” Jordan glanced up. “Good seeing you, Lydia.”

She wasn’t sure she could say the same.

 

**2.**

 

Jordan’s apartment door looked the same as it always did: a little dirty, a little old, in need of a fresh coat of paint. Lydia knocked three times; the door swung open almost instantly.

“Jordan, I— _what the hell?_ ”

Jordan blinked back at her, the orange glow just fading from his eyes. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Lydia couldn’t appreciate his physique; she was too busy staring at the soot striping his face and front. Hellfire smouldered in the cracks of his skin.

They blinked at each other for three beats. Then Jordan glanced quickly around the abandoned hallway. “Inside,” and he pulled Lydia into his apartment, closing the door swiftly behind her.

 _Inside_ didn’t look any better than Jordan’s person. Jordan had never been particularly into housekeeping, but now scorch marks striped the walls, and a burnt, acrid smell lingered in the air that Lydia was sure wasn’t from dinner. There was a heap of charred…something on the counter.

Most people disposed of kitchen scraps via the garbage, or the compost.

“Well,” Lydia said bracingly, “you are definitely not getting your deposit back.”

Jordan had the gall to look surprised…and, all right, maybe a little ashamed. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

True, he only had the two minutes forewarning from when he buzzed her in, but really—even if she had called ahead, there was no way he could’ve hidden this. “What _is_ this?”

“I’ve been practicing.” Jordan sounded a little defensive. “Everyone else has proficiency with their powers, I should too.”

“Yeah, but your neighbours aren’t _fireproof._ ” Jordan had served in _ordnance_ , for Christ’s sake.

Jordan scowled. “You don’t get to judge, Lydia. You of all people should know—we didn’t choose this. We just have to make the best of it. And if I can’t use it properly, then I can’t help anyone.”

She couldn’t argue that logic, but she also couldn’t appreciate using one’s apartment as target practice. He’d lost friends to shit like this. He’d disapproved of Chris’ lightsabre taser, and now he was lighting _fires_ inside his apartment?

Lydia stared up at Jordan, hard and searching—but no, this was him. His eyes remained a steady, clear green.

After a moment, Jordan sighed. “Sorry. That came out wrong.” He ran a hand through his soot-smeared hair. “Anyway, what’s up? Do you need help with something?”

That stung a little—once upon a time they could just hang out because they liked spending time with each other. But now they were back to where they started: distant friends who didn’t hang out together unless there was a reason. Usually involving dead bodies.

“No, I just thought I’d say goodbye.” Their last goodbye during Christmas break had been much less…graceful. Lydia wanted to do better this time (especially since this time the distance would probably last a long, long time). She was a grown-ass adult, and they were still friends. “Plane’s tonight.”

His expression softened. “Princeton, huh?”

“Yup.”

He moved to hug her, then froze, unsure; after a moment of awkwardness, he pulled her in carefully, pressing a chaste kiss into her hair and quickly letting go. “You’re gonna change the world.”

“That’s the plan.” She’d had to change her plan since getting involved in this supernatural business, but that just meant she’d advance the fields of molecular biology _and_ mathematics. Apparently no one has thought to map the werewolf genome yet (or if someone had, they weren’t sharing—though she couldn’t blame them for that). The fact that the supernatural community still relied solely on lore and myth to explain everything from their powers to their behaviour was honestly distressing.

Math first, biology after—when the world was more accepting of these things. Lydia was patient; she could wait. She may have learned that she couldn’t have it all _at once_ , but by god, she would have it all, even if she couldn’t do it on the timeline she originally imagined.

His mouth quirked slightly. “You wanna see what I can do now before you go?”

She gave him a sidelong look. “Are you going to light me on fire?”

“You’re fireproof. Hellfire-proof, at least.”

“If you ruin my dress, Jordan Parrish…”

He laughed aloud and after a moment, she joined in; it occurred to her that he probably didn’t have anyone to share these triumphs with after she had left. He wasn’t _pack_.

He really was getting good at this; he could make some pretty impressive fireballs now. But she talked him into demonstrating at the preserve anyway. They kept a careful, friendly distance throughout.

Lydia was okay with that.

 

**3.**

 

Graduate school was…simultaneously stimulating and infuriating. The campus was nice, even if the promo photos had never captured the toilets that always plugged up or the fact that there never seemed to be enough left-handed desks (seriously?!). She no longer had a roommate; the benefit to her sanity and her olfactory senses was more than worth the expense. Grad students’ stipends weren’t exactly luxurious, but she made it work.

On the one hand, it was nice to be in an environment that supported—at least theoretically—her scholastic pursuits. On the other hand, it was apparently very difficult for the majority of people on campus—faculty, staff, _and_ student—to accept Lydia that could like makeup and really great shoes _and still_ math and science circles around them all. The looks Lydia received when she introduced herself to her freshman math classes were…amusing. The mansplaining and rules-lawyering that followed were _not_.

Her bed partners weren’t any better. It was hard to find a date who treated her as a person and not a trophy, doll, or wet dream—and she hadn’t even gotten to the banshee part yet. Shitty conversationalists made for even shittier lovers.

God, she missed her friends.

Privately, Lydia thought Stiles moved on the easiest of all of them—probably because he was the only one without a supernatural secret to keep. Scott and Malia were physically and psychologically affected by the presence of their pack. Lydia quite literally depended on her friends to keep her sane. They were all miles above where they used to be, but Lydia still often woke in the middle of the night, listening to heartbeats stop and breaths still and the light wink out of lives she never knew.

It helped, a little, that those dying people weren’t anyone she knew or loved. She could still hear them die, grasp little embers of their life. But it was less personal—ghastly whispers only told so much of any one person’s rich and vibrant life. She saw and heard ghosts die.

Tonight, though, the ghosts seemed to be a dull, angry buzzing. Death by bees? Another electric substation suicide?

Oh. Her phone. Her phone was ringing.

Swearing, Lydia reached for her phone, missed, and knocked it to the floor. By the time she turned on the light and clambered to the floor the call had ended.

She checked the caller ID. Mason. Timestamp: 03:42.

Before she could call back, her phone started buzzing again. She swiped to answer, already wide awake. “Hello?”

“Lydia! Call your mom.” Liam sounded breathless.

Ice shot through her veins. “What happened?”

“Explosion, south side. You live in the area, right? Call her. I’ll tell you the rest later.” Liam hung up.

Lydia stared at the phone for a second, then thumbed through her notifications. Ten missed calls (six from Liam, two each from Corey and Mason) and a flurry of texts, all saying the same: _call your mom_.

If she was awake before, she was hyperventilating now.

She called her mother. Cell phone: nothing. Landline (her mother had insisted on keeping it, saying it was good for emergencies): nothing. _She wasn_ _’t picking up._

Tap to dial. Ring, ring, ring. Her mother’s voice: “You’ve reached the voicemail of Natalie Martin—”

Click. Redial. Again, and again, and again, until her fingers were numb, the pressure building in her throat. Nothing.

Tears. It was just tears. It _had to be_ just tears.

Being a harbinger of death changed you. As her powers grew, so did her reliance on her friends and loved ones; she needed them to keep her together as each death scored its mark on her soul. But she couldn’t feel them die all the way from New Jersey. Was that better or worse?

Her phone buzzed and she nearly jumped out of her skin. She swiped it before she realized she was moving. “ _Mom?_ ”

“Lydia?” It was Sheriff Stilinski. “Your mom’s okay.”

 _Oh god_. She deflated like a leaking balloon, sagging against her bedpost. Her mouth worked, not a scream but a thin wail. Sound, not words. “She—”

“She dropped her phone, but she’s fine. A little smoke inhalation, superficial injuries.”

“I want to talk—”

“Sorry Lydia, I gotta go. I’ll talk to all of you soon.”

“Wait—” _Click._

Lydia was alone again, heart hammering in her chest, in perfect time between each spasming breath and the next. The gossamer silence stretched, still and perfect, when even the latest-to-bed had quieted and the early risers had not yet risen. There were no names on her lips, now, no deaths to be heard.

Not yet.

What did he mean, _all of you?_

 

The details came out three days later, a joint account from Sheriff, Melissa, and Chris via conference call.

Apparently Allison’s new creed had not caught on amongst all the hunters (then again, the pack had known it wouldn’t). Liam, Deaton, and the rest had prepared themselves in case of an eventuality. At least, even if any errant hunters stuck to the old code in letter (rather than in spirit), that could allow for some explanations before the fisticuffs.

There was no definitive link between Liam, Brett, or the rest of Brett’s pack with any wrongdoing before or since. Jackson had left. Derek had left. Scott and Stiles and Lydia and Malia were all away.

Several eyewitnesses linked the burning man to the victims from the Dread Doctors, and the pile of bodies by the Beast of Gevaudan. To those in the know, it was not hard to link the burning man to the disappearing deputy who bent steel bars.

There had been a chase, and Jordan had ducked into the nearest cover, which happened to be a townhouse under construction on her mother’s block. He had not called for help (why the hell not?). He had flamed on. A short, ugly fight had followed.

Turns out hellfire was a lot harder to put out than regular fire. Jordan had taken out the entire block, a gas line, twelve parked cars, and ten pets at last count. That number was expected to rise.

There was a long silence after Sheriff finished his report.

Scott spoke first. “Did everyone make it out?”

Chris answered. “Not the hunters.”

“Bad?”

“Thorough. Not even dental records will identify them.”

Lydia said it, because no one else would: “who else?”

Melissa swallowed audibly. “Two families.”

A very long silence.

“And Parrish?” Malia.

“Injured, but alive. He’ll recover.”

“I’ll call him,” Lydia said flatly. Hellhounds didn’t heal as quickly as werewolves, but it still took a lot to keep him down for a few days.

“Lydia—”

“No, he owes me,” she snapped, bright and crackling into the silence. “ _He nearly killed my mom._ ”

She hung up before anyone else could answer.

Jordan picked up on the first ring. He’d probably been expecting her call. “Hey.”

She wanted to say—so much, but he was _alive_ , her mom was _alive_ , and she was terrified and wrung out and empty with grief—for him, for those who had died. For those she couldn’t feel all the way across the country but still cared to mourn.

She could say so much. What came out was a thin, “are you okay?”

“I’ll live. Been through worse.”

Objectively she knew that to be true, but right now it was hard to imagine what _worse_ would be. “What happened?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I thought the others would’ve told you.”

“I want to hear it from _you_.” She was angry now. “You—you blew up a block. A fucking _block_ , Jordan. Why didn’t you call for backup? Why didn’t you—”

Jordan, who wanted to turn himself in the instant he learned he was spiriting people away. Jordan, who would lock himself up and throw away the key if he thought he might be hurting others.

Where the _hell_ was the man she knew?

“It was self-defense, Lydia. They were after me, and they’d go after Liam and the others next. I did what I needed to do to protect me, and them.”

“That’s the hellhound’s job _. Jordan Parrish_ _’s_ job is to protect the citizens of Beacon Hills, human _or_ supernatural.”

“And I’ve done that.” Jordan’s voice was flat. “They weren’t _local._ ”

“And the block of houses you blew? My entire childhood was in there. My mom’s entire _life._ You—” The tears were rolling in earnest now, hot and furious. “You—”

For the first time, he sounded…contrite. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you, or your mom.” A weak attempt at a smile. “I got her out.”

“Not everyone.”

Jordan went silent. Finally: “not the first time I’ve killed someone.”

Brunski. And even before that, in the army. He never talked about it, back when they still talked. But she’d known him well enough to know that it hadn’t been easy on him, before or after the deed.

Lydia has killed, too. The harbingers of death didn’t only _prophesy_ death, after all.

“Sorry.” Jordan’s voice was soft. “I really am, you know.”

“Sorry doesn’t _fix_ anything,” she spat.

He laughed—laughed, at a time like this. Raggedly, but laugh all the same. “When has it ever?”

Never. And it never would.

 

**4.**

 

Another semester, another round of obnoxious freshmen—and it was always freshmen, too. Every semester started with at least two weeks of of mansplaining bullshit because their egos couldn’t accept that high heels didn’t invalidate her brain. It always ended with Lydia taking a seat and whipping out a notebook with a smile fit to kill.

“Go on.” Lydia clicked her pen loudly, fluttering her eyelashes. “You were saying? Let me take notes.”

When the inevitable blowhard dared to question why she wasn’t taking any notes, she answered, acid-sweet: “when you tell me something I don’t already know, then I’ll take notes.”

Were sophomores, juniors, and seniors more infuriating than freshmen or less? Lydia would like to find out, for more interesting course material to teach if nothing else, but her department steadfastly blocked her from TAing higher level courses: “you’re too young, they won’t take you seriously.” Oh, and its charming sequel: “you’re too _pretty_ to be taken seriously.” And the smash hit encore, delivered by the tag team of the TA supervisory professor and some windbag from the Student Success program: “we need to address the ongoing _pattern_ of your _attitude_ toward your students.”

Lydia was a harbinger of death. She was predicting _a lot_ of deaths lately.

Tonight, an email from Sheriff Stilinski interrupted her homicidal plans. It was short, simple, to the point:

_Call me when you have some time. Not urgent, but important._

Well, shit. Not urgent her ass—he wouldn’t send something like this unless it was bad. Lydia swept out of her lab as she dialled, all thoughts of her homicide-via-fire and her conference presentation flying out of her head. “Sheriff? It’s Lydia. You wanted to talk to me?”

“Hi Lydia. Yeah, give me a sec.” A bit of scuffling, a rustling of paper, and then a long silence like the man was at a loss.

Lydia frowned. “Sheriff?”

“Yeah, sorry.” Stilinski let out a long, heavy sigh. “I…I think something is wrong with Parrish.”

Her insides went cold. “Why? What happened?”

“I fired Parrish today.”

“You _what?_ ”

“I fired Parrish today,” Stilinski repeated, sounding more upset than Lydia. “He’s been burning the candle at both ends for years, deputy on one side and helping the kids out with whatever they need helping with, so I try to cut him as much slack as I can. But he’s been slipping for…a long time now. He doesn’t show up to work, doesn’t call in. His…side activities have been getting more and more out of hand, his methods more…aggressive. I’ve been warning him for months. And it’s gotten to the point I can’t cover for him anymore. And you know what the strangest thing is, Lydia?”

“What?”

“I called him into my office—he deigned to show up today, at least—and fired him, and he didn’t care.”

Lydia’s heart skipped a beat. “He…didn’t care.”

“Nope. Blank face, no expression. Didn’t make a fuss, no nothing. He surrendered his badge and issued equipment without a word and I had two deputies walk him out. Nothing. I’ve had more expression from corpses.”

Lydia felt like she was going to break her phone. “And? Then what?”

“I went to do a wellness check later in the afternoon, because nothing about it seemed right. I ran into his landlord, who said he’d been evicted from his apartment months ago. They just rented out his unit again a few weeks back. Apparently it needed significant repairs.”

“So you don’t know where he is?”

“His phone is still on. His words were, ‘don’t worry about me, Sheriff. I’ll be fine. Call me if you need me—but I’ll probably find you first.’ And then he hung up on me.”

Lydia closed her eyes, fighting back tears. “I don’t know how to help you. I haven’t talked to him in months.” Not since the fire. She had thought she would never want to talk to him again.

“Your…connection…doesn’t tell you anything?”

“Not across the country!” She’d known something was wrong months and years ago—the coldness, the scorched apartment, the five-alarm fire. She’d let boundaries and conventions and her need to move on get in the way of _noticing_.

Them in his apartment, the steady green of his eyes. He was still Jordan, then—but how much? How little, now?

Lydia swallowed and tried to find her voice. “Can Liam track him?”

Stilinski barked a laugh, devastating in its helplessness. “Thing with spending so much time with werewolves…you know what they can do. Liam lost him after he left the station. We think he burnt off his scent.”

“I can find him.” _Find the hellhound, and he_ _’ll find the banshee._ Lydia has no reason to think it wouldn’t work in reverse.

Her thoughts flashed to her bed, to her conference itinerary laid neatly with her clothes, and her stomach dropped into her toes. “But—I can’t, not right now, I have a—”

“You don’t have to do it now. I think he can keep himself out of trouble.” He laughed again, a short, ragged sound. “I don’t even know if anything _can_ kill him.”

Scott texted her later in the evening: _I heard. We_ _’ll find him_. It made Lydia laugh, a wet, bubbly sound. Typical Scott. Warm and steady and reassuring, always hopeful, always believing.

It wasn’t _finding_ Jordan that was the problem. It was finding what was _left_.

 

**5.**

 

It took six weeks for the pack to coordinate their return to Beacon Hills. Lydia wasn’t in a rush. Well, she was, but she’d rather come prepared with the entire pack with her than rush in.

“He won’t leave the Nemeton,” she insisted over Stiles’ protests on their seven way conference call. “That was the entire point. He’s around somewhere. We might as well be ready.”

Ready for what? This wasn’t going to be a fight. There was nothing _to_ fight, just a friend they wanted to save.

She didn’t want to face this alone.

Jackson’s plane arrived first, then Malia’s, then Lydia’s, and Scott and Stiles trickled in last. Liam, Mason, Corey, and Derek picked them up together. As soon as each of them saw Lydia, they gave her a hug, hard and tight. No grudges, no assholery, just support.

“Can you feel him?” Scott asked.

“Yeah.” She felt it as soon as they drove into Beacon Hills from Beacon County: a dull heat in her chest, a weight on her skin. She’d been breathing his name the entire plane ride, as if a prayer, a mantra would dull the blood rushing in her ears. “He’s here. He’s alive.”

She wasn’t sure which _he_ she was talking about anymore.

They all piled into Derek’s loft for a quick meal in private, wedging themselves into couches and sprawling across floors. They looked at Lydia expectantly, like she had the answers.

What answers? Jordan was the only hellhound Lydia has ever known. It’s not like she has a roadmap of how any of this was supposed to go.

Lydia took a careful breath and unclenched her fists. Her nails left little moon-shaped marks in her palms. “I think,” and she was proud of how steady her voice was despite the roaring in her ears, “he’s either in the preserve or just by the outskirts of Beacon County. He has superhuman speed and all, but he won’t go far. He’s guarding the Nemeton, and Beacon Hills that surrounds it.”

“Should we split up?” Jackson. “That’s a lot of area to cover.”

“No. I can find him whether or not he wants to be found. None of the rest of you can.”

Malia frowned. “And if we find him, then what?”

It was a great question. It was one she had no answers for. “Then we hope I can call him back somehow.” She’d called Mason back from when he’d been swallowed by Sebastien Valet. She’d called Jackson back from the abomination of the kanima. It was a tiny shred to hang her hopes on, but it was all she got.

Banshees could be wrong. She has predicted lots of things that never came to fruition.

She _wanted_ to be wrong.

“Okay, I’m gonna be the asshole,” Stiles said flatly, ignoring Scott’s elbow. “If we can’t call him back, then what?”

“Stiles!” Jackson snapped.

“Then nothing.” She felt sick. The blood roared in her ears, a crescendo of death. She couldn’t hear herself think. _Jordan Jordan Jordan._

Her voice came out hollow. “Then we failed.” Add another tick to the lives they lost. Add another tick to the ones they couldn’t save.

“He hasn’t hurt anyone,” Liam offered.

Mason flinched. _Beyond the collateral_ hung in the air.

“Beyond the hunters trying to kill him,” Corey said hesitantly, with a sideways look at Liam. “And maybe it was overkill, but it was still self-defense.”

“So we leave him there? Just like that? Burning Man vigilante?”

“ _Do you have a better idea, Stiles?_ ”

“I don’t have a better idea!” Stiles all but shouted. “I was hoping someone would!”

“ _I don_ _’t know!_ ” She hated Stiles then, as purely as she had ever hated anyone. “When have we ever known?! And I should’ve known because I’m the banshee, I should’ve known because I knew he was fading, and if he dies then it’s my fault, there, are you happy?! _I—can_ _’t—save—JORDAN!!!_ ” That last word came out as a piercing scream, rage and guilt and grief.

Dead silence. Wide-eyed, dead silence, perfect and crystalline and stretching so long you could hear the heartbeats in the room.

Lydia felt like she was about to faint.

In a very shaky voice, she whispered, “I think we need to find him, now.”

 

It took six hours to find Jordan in the northern corners of the preserve. Lydia was, despite herself, not an athlete, and the connection was less a route and more of a faulty compass. But eventually, even the others didn’t need her direction: they could smell him.

Not Jordan. Fire. Sulphur, brimstone, carbon. Death.

He was all but waiting for them, clad only in shorts. He was not on fire, but did not seem cold. Jordan had always been obscenely warm, like her own personal space heater. His hair was a little longer, face unshaven—but still, nowhere near _feral_.

Lydia spoke first. She was still in the lead, somehow. “Jordan?”

His mouth tipped slightly. “You always did know how to find me.”

Lydia couldn’t find her voice. She was a banshee, she was mute. She had lost her only weapon. She drew another breath and came up empty.

Scott stepped up, filled in the silence, hands raised. “Are you…okay?”

“I’m fine.” He looked like Jordan, sounded like him. And the hot thrumming under her skin proved that this definitely was the right man, if the orange eyes weren’t a dead giveaway. “Don’t worry about me.” A small, familiar, ironic smile. “Call me if you need me.”

“What,” Stiles blurted, “by phone? Yours still work?”

His mouth quirked a little higher. “Or you could howl.”

She wanted to scream, to call him back. But she had screamed already, the pressure already gone. And she knew, with perfect certainty—like gravity, like the sun rising from the east, like Van der Waerden’s theorem—that there was nothing left to do.

 _Find the hellhound, and he_ _’ll find the banshee._ And the reverse held true.

The banshee was connected to the hellhound, not to Jordan Parrish.

With one last sweeping look at them all, the hellhound moved to leave.

“ _Jordan._ ” It was less scream than plea. She took a breath, tried again, louder, hands raised. “ _Jordan!_ ”

It was pitiful as banshee screams went, but it was a scream, and it hit him square in the back.

He didn’t even flinch.

The banshee was immune to hellfire. The hellhound was immune to her scream.

Lydia sagged to the forest floor.

The hellhound stilled. Turned. Tilted his head.  “Go home, Lydia.” His gaze bore into hers, orange like embers. “You’ve got your entire life ahead of you.”

He melted away into the dark of the forest. None of the others moved to stop him.

Someone knelt down and pulled Lydia in. Jackson. Mason joined them, gathering her hands in his. The ones she did save.

Allison, dead on the ground, head a lolling sprawl.

_You can’t save them all._

**+1**

 

The sheriff delivered the news via email eight months later, three words that broke their hearts: _Parrish is dead_.

He’d been wandering around the outskirts of Beacon County and just dropped dead one day, scaring a couple of passerby half to death. No obvious cause of death. Official cover story was aneurysm. Unofficially…

“We think the hellhound abandoned its host,” Deaton told them.

“Why?” Mason sounded utterly confused. “It had its host. It _turned_ its host. Why would it _waste_ —”

Maybe the hellhound was needed elsewhere in the world, and it was too hard to transport a host. Maybe the host body was rotting away in places no outsider could see.

Maybe they’d never know.

The funeral was small and simple. Derek could’ve afforded a much grander one, but that would require a lot of explanations to Jordan’s family. Stilinski had the unsavoury task of calling Jordan’s next of kin in the first place (and broke his sobriety after that). Jordan had, long ago, requested that his next of kin not be contacted for anything until he was absolutely, certainly, in the ground.

“I don’t want them involved,” he had said.

Every single member of the pack flew back for the funeral. They huddled together, sick with grief and guilt. Jordan’s extended family was too absorbed in their own grief to notice theirs.

Scott squeezed Lydia’s shoulder. “You feel anything?” Even now, he hoped.

Lydia shook her head. “No.” His presence no longer prickled with heat under her skin. This was Jordan’s body, not the hellhound’s.

Nothing killed a hellhound, but Jordan was not a hellhound. Hosted one, that was all.

Nothing killed Jordan except it leaving.

“Why would I?” Her voice cracked, brittle like ash. “He’s been dead for years.”

Lydia knelt down at his grave and laid her flowers. The air hung empty, cold, and silent. Her gaze swept the gravestone: _Jordan Samuel Parrish._

She did not say his name.

**Author's Note:**

> Fatalize (archaic): to ordain or establish by or subject to fate -- Merriam-Webster
> 
> Thanks to FauxChimera and tabbytabbytabby for the inspiration, and FauxChimera, Theostry, Sumire, and Nyxelestia for the plot help.


End file.
